JeetKuneDo

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I don't know you, but in all of this time I may well have teamed with you at some point. Take care!

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Same

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The Fire/Kin era was PI. That's now over. Maybe this past weekend was an abnormality or something, but it looked like farming is a team thing now. The Fire/Kin is "king" of something that isn't done any more.

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Wait, what? Fire/Kins farming anywhere other than PI don't count? Fire/Kins don't exist if they're farming in Atlas instead of PI? I don't get what you're saying. Fire/Kins are still around, and still farming, possibly even more than before, they're just doing it somewhere else. And you're saying that doesn't count and it's the end of an era?

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I think some are misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I'm not saying Fire/Kins now suck.
I'm not saying they can't farm.

I'm saying their era is over.

By "era" I mean...well...surely you know what it was like when Fire/Kins ruled, yes? Farming meant "Fire/Kins" before. All weekend I saw a completely different farming culture....one that does not center around the Fire/Kin. A player would not even have to own a Fire/Kin to farm non-stop now. And wouldn't have to pay either. If it isn't different now, then I don't know what qualifies as "different". This is as dramatic a change as I've seen. Now they seem to start with a Tanker and fill out the team from there. Sure they'll take a Fire/Kin....just like they will take a Defender. (Nothing like a debuffed boss)

If Fire/Kins are "farming more than before" they are certainly well hidden. Nothing could have been more visible before. So I find it tough to believe that they have all suddenly gotten secretive.

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Fire/Kins are still the kings of solo farming.

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That appears to be like bragging on how many 8-track cassettes you own. Because, as you say...

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Atlas Park

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The Fire/Kin era was PI. That's now over. Maybe this past weekend was an abnormality or something, but it looked like farming is a team thing now. The Fire/Kin is "king" of something that isn't done any more.

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With AE, no fill is required. You can farm quite nicely now using defendable objects. They increase spawn size.

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Sweet. So everybody wins on that one. I didn't mind filling so much, but I know that was the #1 complaint before. Now it's even easier to avoid any contact with the farmers.

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We're talking about big groups of lvl 54 bosses.


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I don't care what people farm, but saying that the era of Fire/Kin is over is crazy. They have been and still are the best solo toon to farm with. Can they solo 54 Bosses? Probably not. Can the solo 52 bosses? Mine can. Pre AE, there was no such thing as farming 54 bosses, let alone 54 anything.

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I think you are saying what I am saying. Fire/Kins were the kings of solo farming before AE.

I know something has changed... dramatically. One instance of PI on Freedom? On a Sunday afternoon? Nothing in broadcast? It's like we got a new zone for the 40+ game. Getting a team in that lvl range was a piece of cake this weekend. (Though I never had too much trouble before either.) No tells to fill? No one charging influence?

All the main things the anti-farmers used to complain about appear to be gone. I'm sure there are some Fire/Kins out there solo farming something....but I haven't seen them.

I do question the wisdom of this new farming though. Is lvl 54 bosses really that efficient? Some of those fights can last a while. There was a very good reason why Fire/Kins avoided bosses like the plague in the old days. While you can solo lvl 52 bosses, that appeared to be out of reach for most.

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Just was in Atlas with my Fire/Kin to pay my rent and noticed a broadcast for "all kin team". I thought of this thread immediately and joined up.

We ended up with 7 /kins....mostly fire...and one Scrapper (a low level friend of one of the kins). I figured, ok...this will be easy.

Nope. Those lvl 54 bosses wacked us around pretty good. At least one death per mob. The team was begging for a Tank very quickly. We had two Tankers by the end of the mish. A good experiment though. Fire/Kins aren't the king of farms anymore.

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Everyone on that team, including the scrapper, should reroll.

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I don't know what the standard is, but I believe you have it placed too high.

We've got a few "uber-players" who seem to think everyone else should be that good too. Well....the average player isn't going to charge a group of lvl 54 bosses and yawn.

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No I think his point was if 7 /kins and scrapper aren't tearing through stuff they ALL need to re-roll. I agree.

I think he is saying they are a bunch of NOOBS if a team like that can't get it done (I would have used a stronger word than noobs if I didn't fear the Ocho. Cause that type of team having issues seems idiotic to me. I mean for god's sakes, how many FS and SB is that? ), not that he expects the scrapper or just one of the /kins to charge in alone one at a time.

Hell even if only 2-3 of the /kins had taken ID and used it on the scrapper, it would be like having a near tank.

Yeah that entire team needed to re-roll. Sorry.

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We're talking about big groups of lvl 54 bosses. And no matter how good you think your timing is....someone is going to get the alpha strike. Whoever hit flashfire a fraction of a second before anyone else gets at least 4 or 5 +4 bosses taking a shot at you. If there is some way that "experience" makes you have more hitpoints, I would love to hear it. That lowbie scrapper got faceplanted a couple of times trying to go in first. Sure you'll win....but someone is going to die almost every group. I even swallowed 3 purps and got killed once. +4 bosses have some great acc I guess. (And it doesn't take many hits from them to do you in)

I had a pretty fun time personally. I didn't think anyone "sucked" or anything. It's like the Clockwork King...a bunch of damage coming at you at one time. The Alpha Strike was the problem. Someone was going to get it more often than not.

It was an interesting experiment and we just found out we needed a more well rounded team. Nothing more to it than that. If that offends some that still want to think Fire/Kins are gods, so be it.

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Just was in Atlas with my Fire/Kin to pay my rent and noticed a broadcast for "all kin team". I thought of this thread immediately and joined up.

We ended up with 7 /kins....mostly fire...and one Scrapper (a low level friend of one of the kins). I figured, ok...this will be easy.

Nope. Those lvl 54 bosses wacked us around pretty good. At least one death per mob. The team was begging for a Tank very quickly. We had two Tankers by the end of the mish. A good experiment though. Fire/Kins aren't the king of farms anymore.

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Everyone on that team, including the scrapper, should reroll.

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I don't know what the standard is, but I believe you have it placed too high.

We've got a few "uber-players" who seem to think everyone else should be that good too. Well....the average player isn't going to charge a group of lvl 54 bosses and yawn.

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Nothing Heroside can out farm a well built fire/kin.

Nothing.

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I must have been on a different kind of fam I guess. Forgive me, I haven't been on in a while.

The one I saw featured nothing but bosses...lvl 54. Ain't no Fire/Kin going to farm that one. This was a team...it had to be.

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Well nothing can solo level 54s bosses efficiently so obvious that you'd need a team for them.

But if you bring it down to lvl 50 bosses my fire/kin can go at about the same rate as the other 7 members, as long as one of them isn't a kin. And if you go back to the old PI farms he can smoke the other 7 members.

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Well yeah... if we go back to that. But that was my point. Those farms seem to be history. Freedom PI was a peaceful place today. Those specific situations where the Fire/Kin was god are no longer the farm of choice. And does anyone "bring it down to lvl 50"? (I have no idea how you make a mish spawn lvl 54 or not.) So you may have a tough time finding that one.

I just did some more "research" today. Brought out a high lvl Fire/Fire Blaster, Spines/Dark Scrapper (who can give any Fire/Kin a run for their money without worrying so much about dying), and Dark/Dark Defender and joined some farm teams. I mean...this is so much better. We used to hear talk about how horrible it was in PI with doorsitting and one person doing all the work. Now you contribute to farms no matter what your AT. The team NEEDS you. I saw actual tactics today. A few team wipes too...after which there is talk of changing tactics.

And have we also gotten rid of the people who are charging to be on the team? I didn't see any of that in broadcast.

I don't see why there would be a lot of complaining about these new farms. This is a massive improvement. This bears a strong similarity to....the regular game.

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Fire/Kins aren't the king of farms anymore


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AE farms.

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And unless my past 2 days are deceiving me, that's the only farms that have survived.

Just was in Atlas with my Fire/Kin to pay my rent and noticed a broadcast for "all kin team". I thought of this thread immediately and joined up.

We ended up with 7 /kins....mostly fire...and one Scrapper (a low level friend of one of the kins). I figured, ok...this will be easy.

Nope. Those lvl 54 bosses wacked us around pretty good. At least one death per mob. The team was begging for a Tank very quickly. We had two Tankers by the end of the mish. A good experiment though. Fire/Kins aren't the king of farms anymore.

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Fire/kins are still VERY common in AE farms.

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Yes, on TEAMS. Rarely soloing the whole map on their own.

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Agreed. The Fire/Kins I saw were on teams that included a Tanker. Remember when we needed a Tanker? The good ole days are back!

Most of the Fire/Kins are probably there because they were built during the Fire/Kin era. Something tells me there aren't as many being rolled now. If I wanted to farm all the time, I would go with a Spines or Fire Scrapper now. Since the whole team is fighting, why play a toon that actually has to work? A Fire/Kin has to do a lot more to stay alive...and you have all those teammates who are actually with you to SB every couple minutes. A much different world than when you only had to think about yourself while a bunch of stunned Lts and Mins melted.

I'll admit I didn't farm very often in the old days. (once or twice a month maybe?) It just got boring. But this type of farm is actually fun. I'm sort of a nerd for teaming though, so that may explain it.

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Nothing Heroside can out farm a well built fire/kin.

Nothing.

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I must have been on a different kind of fam I guess. Forgive me, I haven't been on in a while.

The one I saw featured nothing but bosses...lvl 54. Ain't no Fire/Kin going to farm that one. This was a team...it had to be.

Just got back from a bit of a break. Found myself in Freedom PI last night. That's ONE Freedom PI total. The broadcast was clear, the zone had zone appropriate toons running around, and not a Fire/Kin in sight.

I then went to Atlas and that's where the action is. ...But with a difference. Again very few Fire/Kins....and the farm teams are now TEAMS. Doorsitting appears to be a thing of the past. Interesting!

I assume the former talk of how "overpowered" Fire/Kins are has gone away too. As I always said, get them out of those specific situations and you'll find out they are not gods after all.

This isn't a gloat at Fire/Kins. I even pulled mine out to join the farm and see what it was like. It's faceplant city if you get cocky with these farms. I enjoyed playing my Fire/Kin the same way I always enjoyed it. It's a great team character and the new farms are a team endeavor. Much more fun.

The best part is I won't have to respec out of a "farm build" since I never used one. She still has Hover/Fly/Teleport like always and powers like Bonfire (underrated).

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Go for it.
As far as I'm concerned, the fewer people that have Purples the better. Oh, and what "Purple Problem" are we speaking of? I know of no such problem. Do recall their status of "ultra-rare" as in more rare than even rare things.

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I see that explanation thrown out a lot anytime someone complains about the price of purples.

Can we get a solid definition of what "ultra rare" means? Was it the amount before MA or after? Because that's two different levels of rarity.

If the Devs were happy with the level of rarity before MA, that can only mean they are too rare now. I don't think "Ultra Rare" was meant to mean "no amount of rarity is too much".

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Then the devs should address that? Oh wait. they did in the opposite direction by villainizing farming, the single largest source of purples.

Its darkly ironic that the same people who hate farmers and marketeers are the same people who want cheap purples.

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I wasn't really talking about farming or marketeers. I don't think either one bothers me much. (Though flipping provides no service to anyone)

Back to what I WAS talking about: Can we get a definition of "ultra rare"? There must be a target there somewhere. I don't want to see it used to explain away all gripes about purples. Since the Devs made no alteration to drop rates before MA, that indicates they were ok with the supply back then. If that's true, it would seem an increase in the drop rate would now be in order to get back to that level.

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Go for it.
As far as I'm concerned, the fewer people that have Purples the better. Oh, and what "Purple Problem" are we speaking of? I know of no such problem. Do recall their status of "ultra-rare" as in more rare than even rare things.

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I see that explanation thrown out a lot anytime someone complains about the price of purples.

Can we get a solid definition of what "ultra rare" means? Was it the amount before MA or after? Because that's two different levels of rarity.

If the Devs were happy with the level of rarity before MA, that can only mean they are too rare now. I don't think "Ultra Rare" was meant to mean "no amount of rarity is too much".

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Now, with AE in place, I find that much of the preceeding content is being skipped by "new" players and they are more and more ignoring the aspects of the game which made it unique and interesting. Instead of AE bringing a whole new level of interesting content to the playerbase, it's implementation has brought "instant leveling gratification". A new player can in very short order skip all the content of the last 6 years to achieve what goal? To become a level 50 and not know how to play it? To constantly have to ask basic questions that the typical 12mos vet knows because they actually ran content?

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I take this as great news.

I had no idea we had that many new players. Sweet. A 5 year old game with a mass influx of new players? Awesome. We rule.

And if that isn't the case then the problem you talk about isn't that bad. It would mean that most of the players have been around a while and know what they are doing.

Ok thanks guys.

I figured it couldn't be my PC since it ran perfectly just 2 months ago. I assumed something must have changed for something this drastic.

I recently took a break from the game for a while. (couple months...I think)

Just logged in yesterday for the first time and got some odd behavior graphics-wise. The character was a Bots MM (lvl 14). I pulled out the tier 1 and tier 2 bots and started doing a little street sweeping to get back into the groove. I noticed my two little bots were going completely invisible and I could only see the bubble around them from the middle bot. I zoned into a mission and got the same thing with them again. (They show up when you summon them but go away after a couple of minutes.)

That was weird. But I also noticed there were some new things going on with powers. When I turned Hover and Fly on I got a glow animation I didn't get before. There was some glowing animation on defeated mobs. The mobs also were running sideways when they moved around. I also noticed some new animations on different powers the mobs were using. And caltrops were popping up even though no one was using them....but there was no 'slow" or tick damage so they really weren't there.

And odd experience....I logged out thinking, "O...kay....I'll come back later"

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In your estimation, when will I be able to choose powers from any powerset in the game regardless of architype and without restriction as to the number I can dip into (a la Champions Online)? For an example less related to a rival franchise, when do you imagine the developers will cave in and admist that stamina is a requirement for 99% of player-characters and not an "option" and simply give it to us for free? Or on another tangent, when do you expect they will open a full, open-world PvP server?

Your point IS well taken - its good not to be too abruptly dismissive of anything out fo the ordinary. But there are still a great many features people (or at least a subset of people) might want that are, if not impossible, then catastrophically unlikely for a variety of reasons both good and bad.

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Hey now...you're trying to suck me into the prediction business...and avoiding that was my original point.

I'm just saying that sometimes when a poster suggests that we should have more digits in the trade window....you may not want to put your name up there with "never going to happen" so quickly.

I certainly wouldn't predict "free Stamina"...I'm not sure being the best power in the game equates to "should be free"....but am I going to rule it out?

Let this be another lesson to anyone that confidently posts "never going to happen" in response to a suggestion they don't like.

Add side-switching to the long list of things that were "never going to happen". I love this game....there is simply no such thing as "never going to happen".

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I would bet that many people take Stamina because they were told to take it when they first started playing, then that became the "way" the game was "supposed" to be played.

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Agreed. I've noticed several recent threads in the specific AT forums where most of the posters take Stamina as a given, even on Willpower and Regen builds.

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Only because they're being constantly told by people like those in this thread that it's mandatory, not because they actually need it. "Oh, stick it out and don't worry. Once you hit 20 it's smooth sailing." seems to be the common refrain whenever anyone asks for help with their Endurance management. It seems to translate into "Oh, don't bother learning how to manage your Endurance early on since you won't have to once you hit 20."

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They are told that because that IS the way the game is played.

Deny it all you want...claim we don't "need" Stamina (true)...that we don't "need" a travel power (true)...that we don't "need" enhancements (true).

You can play the game without all those things. But you won't be playing it the way (almost) everyone else is playing it. This is a fast-paced game...and is in fact proud of that and uses it as a selling point. It doesn't take long to figure out that we play at a quick pace. You can lag behind with "omw to mish" and "resting". No one is going to kick you off the team for that. But you aren't going to have teammates thinking "wow...he/she is a really good player" either.

Because that's just the way we play the game.

You may now console yourself by claiming the playerbase are all "lazy".

Hee hee...

I love the "I don't have a problem with endurance pre-Stamina" posts. To those posters, I would ask: "Why do you take Stamina then?"

I've been playing my 50s so darn much that I haven't had to think about this one for a while. And my last two alts "skipped" to lvl 20. It just happened...I looked up and they were lvl 20! Wow! I have no idea why they stopped at lvl 20...hmmm..what could it be?

I've yet to see a logical reason why Rest has any recharge at all. How can you possibly be too tired to rest? Because you were just resting? Sprint has no recharge and it should logically require some effort to run faster. You could make a logical case that Sprint should have a recharge.

You aren't able to do anything while resting....you are more vulnerable....it takes a while to kick in...and you have to wait for it to work. All these things are reasonable and are a great "penalty" for using it.

But a recharge too? That screams "time-sink...just because". Frankly, it sounds like it came from the mind of an infamous former Dev and needs to go the way of the dodo. It's just not logical.

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I get that this is such a great departure from "normal gaming" that it will be a bit of culture shock for some, but I'm loving it. It's probably pretty easy to think of it as somehow not being a part of the game.

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I think the opening poster is referring more to the fact that 90% of the community has been doing nothing but MA farms since it started. Their views may be cynical, but it's understandable at least.

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I do see numbers like "90%", "99%", and other very high percentages being thrown out.

I play on Freedom and that isn't true there. I've been getting a lot of invites to MA teams (I turn them down atm until the ticket problem is fixed)...but not to a MA farm yet. So where do these "90%" numbers come from? So far, it seems I would have to seek out a farm mish because it's not coming up on my screen. I'm seeing tons of arcs that have very few plays. I'm also parking myself in IP, KR, or FF and have no problems with "farm spam". I suppose if a person went to Atlas they would assume the broadcast chatter represents "90% of the players". But there are a lot of us that don't use broadcast to find teams. "90% of use don't use it" as a matter of fact. (hee hee...had to work that in)

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One thing we are all discovering: The more options we have, the harder it will be to find a team doing the exact same thing we want to do at any given moment.

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Very true.

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I want to propose a topic for discussion. Is the Mission Architect a good, an evil, or a complete grey area? Personally, I am starting to hate the Mission Architect. Blunt, yes, but it is true. Whatever happened to the good days of actually playing story-driven content? Whatever happened to working for levels? Whatever happened to playing City of Heroes?

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1-MA is "story driven content" to me. It's not the same stories we've been playing for 5 years, but it's still stories. I get a different one every time too.

2-If you lvl in a MA mish, how is that not "working for lvls"?

3-MA is also "City of Heroes".

I get that this is such a great departure from "normal gaming" that it will be a bit of culture shock for some, but I'm loving it. It's probably pretty easy to think of it as somehow not being a part of the game.

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And the farmers say their behavior doesn't impact other players.

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In other topics, you complain about the farmers ruining your game and you yell GMs should stop them... and when GMs listen to you by stopping them and yanking your arc at the same time, you blame the farmers again using this as your example of them ruining your game.

Self-fulfilling prophecy... I'm on to you, sir.

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I was going to address this one too.

The endless threads by anti-farmers have an effect too. Don't act surprised when a Dev response to the complaining over-reaches at times. If you guys would do like I do you would never see a farm and would have enough arcs to play to keep you busy until Christmas. There are so many out there it's insane. I play on Freedom too so there isn't a good excuse. If you can't find the channel for arcs, the zones that aren't crowded, and the thread on this board for arcs....then you just aren't trying at all and I suspect your motives.

Another side effect is the rest of losing out on cool stuff in the future like the ability to place spawns where we want. The board overreaction does have consequences.